Oxygen tent apparatus and housing



Nov. 12, 1968 WALLACE ET AL 3,410,107

OXYGEN TENT APPARATUS AND HOUSING Filed Aug. 25, 1967 5 Sheets-Sheet 1 mmvgNToRs u DEAN WALLACE i k DOUGLAS 0. GARDEN n. Q4 6 g Q 43 60 1 AGENTNov. 12, 1968 o. R. WALLACE E OXYGEIN TENT APPARATUS AND HOUSING 3Sheets-Sheet Filed Aug. 25, 1967 EN CE 1. \1 D q u q L T om T T N N 0 E2 W M 0 m L A N6 AU E0 DD I 3 V, 1 m4 Nov. 12, 1968 D. R. WALLACE E L3,410,107

OXYGEN TENT APPARATUS AND HOUSING 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 Filed Aug. 25, 1967 FIC16 III:

kbO at? INVENTORS DEAN R. WALL A CE DOUGLAS D. CARDEN AGENT UnitedStates Patent Office 3,410,107 Patented Nov. 12, 1968 OXYGEN TENTAPPARATUS AND HOUSING Dean R. Wallace, Madison, and Douglas D. Carden,

Barneveld, Wis., assignors to Air Reduction Company,

Incorporated, New York, N.Y., a corporation of New York Filed Aug. 25,1967, Ser. No. 663,417 7 Claims. (Cl. 6226l) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSUREApparatus including a housing and equipment therein for providing aconditioned environment to an oxygen tent, said housing comprising fourside panels and posts, a base and a cover assembly, said equipmentcomprising a central cold box" chamber and a refrigeration systemtherefor.

Background of the invention The purpose or function of an oxygen tent isto provide a conditioned, oxygen enriched atmosphere for treatment ofvarious illnesses.

Apparatus of the prior art employed to accomplish this purpose hasencountered problems in ease of access to internal components forservicing, maintenance or replacement of parts and for cleaning theoperating components to provide maximum efficiency and prevent cloggingand cross contamination.

Not only have the housings of the prior art required the use of toolsfor time consuming removal of parts to get to the internal components,but the internal components used in many instances are not conductive tocleaning and their arrangement within the housing prevents or hindersadequate servicing, maintenance or replacement of parts as well as theircleaning. Furthermore, it is desirable to have a condensate receptaclewith visible means to show the condensate level rather than have toremove parts of the housing for inspection.

Summary of the invention It is the primary object of this invention toprovide a novel housing arrangement wherein no tools are required toprovide access to the interior.

It is a further object of this invention to provide an arrangement ofcomponents within the housing to provide ease of access to eachcomponent individually for proper servicing, maintenance, replacementand cleaning.

It is also an object of this invention to utilize an evaporator platefree of fins rather than difiicult to clean and service evaporatorcoils, and a removable blower wheel wherein no tools are required forremoval.

It is also an object of this invention to provide the housing with avisible indication of the condensate level in the condensate receptacle.

With the above and other objects in view, the invention resides in thenovel features of form, construction, ar rangement, and combination ofparts hereinafter described and claimed.

Brief description of the drawing FIG. 1 is a perspective view of theapparatus housing;

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the sliding panel and corner post construction;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the housing frame;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the cold box chamber with the blowerhousing seal cut away;

FIG. 5 is a plan view of the evaporator plate;

FIG. 5a is a cross-sectional view showing a refrigerant channel alongline 5a5a of FIG. 5;

FIG. 5b is an end view of FIG. 5 along line 5b5b; and

FIG. 6 is a schematic view of the internal components of the housing.

Description of the preferred embodiments Referring now more specificallyand with reference characters to the drawing, in FIG. 1, the housing 1comprises side panels 2, corner posts 3, horizontal frame members 13,base 49 and cover assembly 4. Louvers 5 are placed near the top of apair of opposed panels to lessen the possibility of the entrance of dirtand dust to the interior of the housing while ventilating same. One sidepanel has an opening therein receiving condensate tray 6 provided with ahandle 7 for removal and sight glass 8 for viewing the level ofcondensate in the tray. The cover assembly includes, on its externalsurface, control panel 9, air inlet 10, intake duct 11 and dischargeduct 12.

As seen in FIG. 3, the corner posts are held together at their upper andlower ends by horizontal frame members 13 to form the housing frame.Casters 14 are fastened to the members 13 near the corner posts. Coverassembly 4 is hinged to a horizontal member at 15. The interior of thehousing includes cold box" chamber 16 comprising bottom wall 17, sidewalls 18, and horizontal peripheral flange 19 which is fastened to upperhorizontal members 13 at 27 to support the chamber in position withineasy access once the cover assembly is lifted as shown. Within thechamber is evaporator plate 20 to be described in more detailhereinafter and a blower fan including wheel 25 shown in FIG. 4.Extending below and connected to the blower wheel through the chamberbottom wall is motor 21 which turns the blower wheel to provide anegative pressure at the intake duct and air inlet.

It should be noted that the hollow interior of chamber 16 is dividedinto a negative pressure side at the intake duct and a positive pressureside at the discharge duct by means of rib separator 22 on the coverassembly which contacts rib 23 on blower housing seal 24 as shown inFIG. 4. The blower housing seal 23 rests on shoulder 50 of the chamber.Blower wheel 25 is readily removable merely by removing nut 26. In thelower part of the housing interior is the refrigeration system generallydesignated at 28.

Referring now more particularly to FIGS. 5, 5a and 5b, the evaporatorplate 20, preferably of aluminum, is formed by the bonding together oftwo imperforate complementary plates in which have been formed desiredcontinuous groove patterns. After bonding, the imperforate plate formedthereby has, as shown in FIG. 5a, a common wall 29 and closed continuouschannels 30. The channels run substantially the entire plate length inits rebent configuration as shown in FIG. 5 with spaced succeedinglevels along the vertical dimension of the plate. The configured platein FIG. 5 uses round aluminum spacers 31 which retain the finalconfiguration of the plate and extend therethrough at walls 29 betweenchannels 30. As shown in FIG. 5b, the initial entry of the refrigerantfrom the refrigeration system is through an aluminum copper tube 32 intothe continuous channels 30 and the exit of the refrigerant in its returncycle through the refrigeration system is by way of a similar tube 33.

Referring now more specifically to FIG. 6, the internal components ofthe housing also include a liquid filled sensing element 34 in theintake duct 11 which monitors the air coming in from the tent canopy andacts on a combination bellows and microswitch to control directionalflow of refrigerant. If the incoming air is too low in temperature ascompared with a set point, the microswitch closes and energizes thesolenoid bypass valve 35 'which allows hot gas from the compressor toflow through it into the evaporator plate 20, thus imposing anartificial load on the system. When the temperature reaches the setpoint, the lmicroswitch opens and causes a deener- 3 gization of thesolenoid at the bypass valve 35 and a return to a cooling cycle.

The refrigeration system comprises the evaporator plate 20 in the upperpart of the housing in chamber 16 with the refrigerant on a coolingcycle running through tubing 36 connecting the evaporator plate tocompressor 37 and condenser 38 in the lower part of the housing, throughdryer 39, expansion valve 40 and back to the evaporator plate. Fan 41 isprovided in the lower part of the housing to maintain air brought inthrough louvers 5 circulating in the housing to dissipate the heatgenerated during the cooling cycle.

Thus, air is brought into the housing cold box chamber from the canopyby means of the negative pressure created by the blower fan. The air isconditioned on its way to the positive side of the chamber and exitsthrough the discharge duct into the canopy.

The panel and corner post arrangement for the housing is shown in FIG.2. Each panel 2, preferably made of steel, is provided with opposedtongues 42 substantially coplanar with the interior surface of thepanel. The corner posts 3 are aluminum extrusions of substantiallysquare cross-section having tongue receiving T-shaped grooves 43extending inwardly from the post interior surfaces 45 and spaced fromthe external surfaces 44 of the post a distance sufficient to provide aflush, coplanar relationship between the exterior surfaces of panel andpost. The internal surfaces 45 are recessed between each groove and itsexternal surface 44, and each groove is constructed of substantiallylarger width and length than the tongue received therein to provide aspace for T-shaped vinyl extrusion 46 having split legs 47 and 48 with adiverging bias for secure attachment of the vinyl extrusion to the post.Leg 48 has a spacer bulb 60 at its free end for positioning each panelside edge adjacent its tongue in spaced relation to post interiorsurface 45 at the recess. The vinyl extrusion not only preventsvibration rattling which would result from metal to metal contact ofpanel and post due to the refrigeration system but it acts to facilitatemovement of the panels relative to the posts. Thus, the panels can beeasily slided upwardly and removed, once the cover assembly is lifted,to provide access to the interior of the housing. The panels aresupported by the housing base 49 as are posts 3.

It is intended that all matter contained in the above description orshown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrativeand not in a limiting sense.

Having thus described our invention, what we claim as new and desire tosecure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. Oxygen tent apparatus in combination with a housing therefor, saidhousing comprising a frame, a plurality of panels, a cover assembly anda base, said frame including a plurality of vertical posts andhorizontal members adjacent the upper and lower ends of said postsconnecting said posts together, each post having a plurality of verticalgrooves running substantially the length thereof and being supported onsaid base, each panel having a tongue at each side edge slidablyreceived within a corresponding groove of an adjacent post and beingsupported by said base, a cold box chamber extending within said housingand supported by said upper horizontal members, said cover assemblybeing supported by said upper horizontal members and, along with saidbase,

adapted to prevent sliding movement of said panels, and a refrigerationsystem supported by said base so that upon lifting said cover assembly,said panels may be slidably removed to expose the cold box chamber andrefrigeration system for cleaning and servicing.

2. The combination set forth in claim 1 wherein an evaporator plate ispositioned within said chamber, said plate having a plurality of rebentportions, said plate being imperforate and said plate having at leastone integral continuous channel running substantially the entire lengththereof, said at least one channel being positioned at spaced levelsalong the height of said plate.

3. The combination set forth in claim 2 wherein said cover assembly hasa downwardly extending continuous intermediate rib, said chamber has ablower wheel positioned therein in fixed relation to said evaporatorplate and a blower housing seal positioned over said blower wheel andresting on a shoulder in said chamber adjacent the upper edge of saidevaporator plate, said seal including an opening therethrough above saidwheel and a continuous upstanding rib vertically aligned with the coverassembly rib to divide said chamber into a negative pressure side at theblower wheel and a positive pressure side.

4. The combination set forth in claim 1 wherein said grooves are largerthan said tongues forming thereby an internal space, and a plasticmember in said internal space to preclude contact of said panels andposts.

5. The combination set forth in claim 1 wherein at least one panel haslouvers adjacent the top edge thereof to permit ventilation of thehousing interior, and one panel has an opening therein, a condensatetray received within said opening, said condensate tray having a sightglass for inspection of the condensate level.

6. Oxygen tent apparatus in combination with a housing therefor, saidapparatus including a cold box chamber positioned within said housingand secured thereto, and an evaporator plate positioned within saidchamber, said evaporator plate comprising an imperforate plate in afixed configuration having formed therein at least one continuousrefrigerant-receiving channel, refrigeration apparatus within saidhousing and secured thereto below said chamber, and means connectingsaid refrigeration apparatus to said evaporator plate through saidchamber to allow refrigerant to cycle within said at least one channelof said evaporator plate.

7. The combination set forth in claim 6 wherein said housing includes acover assembly, said cover assembly having a downwardly extending rib,said chamber including a blower wheel positioned therein in fixedrelation to said evaporator plate and a seal positioned over said wheeland adjacent the upper edge of said evaporator plate, said sealincluding an upstanding rib vertically aligned with said cover assemblyrib to divide said chamber into negative and positive pressure sides.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,159,741 5/1939 Kettering 62-26l2,502,263 3/1950 Lewis 62-26l 2,677,253 5/1954 Lee 62-261 3,357,76312/1967 Toper 62-298 WILLIAM J. WYE, Primary Examiner.

